Resolution

13. Girls

"I know you're looking for salvation in the secular age, but girl I'm not your savior."

Song: Girls

Artist: The 1975

My knuckles were white, my tight grip on the steering wheel robbing my joints of blood as I drove home in the early morning light like a coward.  I had felt so much braver last night in the dark and in the warmth of his arms that I thought maybe I could do it, maybe I could show him how I was starting to feel without completely freaking out. 

I had been wrong. 

I could feel him opening up, bit by bit, slowly showing me that there was more to him just as I had suspected and that there was a part of him that actually wanted me, not my body.  While that had been what I had secretly been hoping he’d say for a while now, it terrified me.  If he was starting to cave, it was only a matter of time until I did, but the wounds inflicted on my heart by the last man I had let in were still yet to heal. 

How could I let Harry in when I had walls built so high that even I couldn’t fully get around them?

In a fleeting moment of panic, I had fled, leaving the comforting warmth of his body and the beautifully sleeping man that for once, looked vulnerable in his relaxed state.  It had been extremely hard to do so, but I knew if I didn’t get out now, I never would and I’d only end up heartbroken again.

Relationships don’t work.  People cheat, people lie, and people aren’t meant to be with one person.  It can’t work. 

These are the words I repeated to myself as I drove home to stop myself from turning around and running right back to him.  If I were to have stayed, I don’t know what would have happened, but I know it would only be further detrimental to the both of us.  He had finally admitted he felt something for me, and I knew I felt it for him.  If I were to stay and let those feelings manifest themselves, we would only fall deeper and hurt worse when one of us inevitably broke the other. 

It can’t work; if I left, there was a chance we could go back to being friends with benefits, where the way our bodies moved together would attempt to satisfy the burning need we had for each other, even though I knew it would never be enough.  I would always want more from him, I just had to be strong enough to resist.  I didn’t know if I was. 

The sun was just peaking over the horizon as I parked my car outside of my apartment.  I leaned my head back against the seat and let my eyes close for a second as I took a deep breath.  My heart already ached at the thought of him waking up alone with no explanation as to where I’d gone, but it was better for him to resent me than us to fall even more into each other.

How did you get yourself into this?

With a final deep breath, I climbed out of my car and made my way inside where I collapsed into my cold, empty bed, instantly wishing Harry was there with me.  I tried to shush the thought, but I couldn’t stop it from resonating through my skull, mocking me for what I had just potentially ruined.  It was for the best, I reminded myself; it will be better in the long run if I leave him now, before things got too real and there was no going back.

The majority of my Saturday afternoon was spent in bed, wallowing in self-pity like the selfish person that I was.  I couldn’t deny that the biggest reason I had left him was to protect myself, because I didn’t know if I could handle another attack on my heart like the one Ben had waged.  If anything, Harry was already more dangerous to me than Ben ever had been, which utterly terrified me and was essentially the reason I had run away like a scared little girl.